UW signs Greg Gard to 5-year deal as head coach #inGardWItrust

By now you’ve obviously heard that UW officially removed the interim tag from Greg Gard’s job title last night, and he inked a 5-year deal reportedly worth just under $2 million per season. As time wore on this seemed more and more like a no-brainer, but when Gardo first took over, it was anything but that. He was put in an almost impossible position with a team that was clearly distracted and not ready to make noise in the Big Ten, and he found a way to win 11 of 13 to end the conference schedule. This team got behind him and fought for his cause, and now it’s officially paid off.

I’ve already said pretty much everything I have to say about Coach Gard over the past few months, but just to reiterate, it’s awesome to see him get this job that he’s put so much time and effort into earning. He was the first guy I ever talked to when I started looking for ways that I could work for the team, and there’s not many Associate Head Coaches taking the time to call back the high school kid who wants to wipe up sweat during practice. But Gardo was never most Associate Head Coaches. He was always good to everybody I saw him interact with, and there’s really not a person with the program that I’ve ever heard say something negative about him. The fact of the matter is that genuinely good people are few and far between in major sports – and Badger fans got a reminder of that over the last week – but Coach Gard is one of em. Wisconsin basketball is in good hands.